Gene Simmons Says Sue Your Fans, Take Their Homes; So Why Hasn't He?
from the put-up-or-shut-up dept
Kiss' Gene Simmons apparently was bored of not getting enough coverage in the blogworld lately, and so he's cooked up another "controversy." He does this every year or so, making a big stink about "piracy" or new business models, and I'm pretty sure at this point that he only says this stuff because he knows people will write about it. In 2008 he claimed that Radiohead was destroying the music industry with its "pay what you want" experiment -- even though it made the band more money than all their previous releases. In 2007, he told Billboard Magazine that the labels should be suing more people:The record industry doesn't have a f*cking clue how to make money. It's only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there's no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid's face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work."Of course, the evidence suggests Simmons is totally wrong, but apparently he hasn't learned anything in the past three years or he doesn't care. Kiss keeps selling concert tickets at an amazing clip, so he can say whatever ridiculous thing he wants and he still makes more money. So he's basically repeated those claims from 2007 (found via Hypebot), by saying that fans should be sued until they lose their homes:
"It is a business. You have a fiduciary duty to your own butt to make sure you maximise any potential and minimise any exposure,"He's right about that, but perhaps confused about long-term vs. short-term maximization. You can maximize revenue in the short term at the expense of long-term revenue, and one good way to do that is to smack around your fans. But that didn't stop Simmons:
Make sure your brand is protected, be litigious, sue anybody -- take their homes, their cars, DON'T LET ANYBODY CROSS THAT LINE.These are his fans he's talking about. While he's got fans to spare, he may discover one day that suggesting bands sue their fans isn't actually a good long-term strategy.
"The music industry was asleep at the wheel and didn't have the balls to go and sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded a clip," Simmons roared, "so now we're left with hundreds of people without jobs. I have a record company."Not quite sure where that final non-sequitur came from (sounds sort of like "I'm on a horse.") Either way, he's confusing the record industry with the music industry. The recording industry did, in fact, try to sue every college kid who downloaded stuff. And it ended up costing them a ton of money, educating many more people about file sharing, and driving people and systems further underground. And, while all that was happening the music industry (not the recording industry) continued to grow at a pretty massive rate, despite his claims. I'm on a horse.
He illustrated these already-colourful points with a handful of stories: one about a captain who's told he has a small hole in his ship (will he cork it now, or sink before arrival to the New World?), and another about a farmer who lets a cute fox run away with an egg. The fox tells all the other foxes, who come to ravage and steal and kill all the chickens, after which point the farmer's wife divorces her witless husband and the children all hate him.Um. Okay. Story time from Gene Simmons. I can tell stories too, except mine are actually about real people who figured out that attacking or suing your fans was a bad idea, and actually putting in place smarter business models made sense.
But here's the reason why I think Simmons is making all this up for the attention and the press. He notes that he has a record company, and he screams about the industry not having the balls to sue people. So... um... Gene... where are your thousands of lawsuits against file sharers? After all, I would imagine that KISS songs are downloaded all the time. What's with all the talk and no action? Where are all the lawsuits that drove kids out of their homes and cars? Oh right. They didn't happen.
And, in the meantime, as mentioned, Simmons is making a ton of money selling concert tickets. The article notes $400 million in concert tickets sold in the last 8 years, and that's only a tiny fraction of the KISS business behemoth, which sells all sorts of scarcities that people want to buy. In other words, Simmons (who wastes no opportunity to talk about what a brilliant business man he is) has actually figured out how to thrive in a world where free copying is rampant, by selling stuff that can't be copied for free. He should be one of the poster children for showing how you build a business that "competes with free." It's just sad that he either doesn't realize why his business worked, or he wants to mislead everyone about it.
Anyway, you can watch the video below of this talk. The whole talk is about 40 min but I've queued up to the parts quoted here:
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Filed Under: business models, fans, gene simmons, lawsuits, music industry
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Correction
These WERE his fans he's talking about.
Better.
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One question about Simmons:
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Re: One question about Simmons:
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Re: One question about Simmons:
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Re: One question about Simmons:
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a business man...
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Re: a business man...
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Re: Re: a business man...
yech.
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Nice metaphor
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Who has two thumbs and can't stand KISS anyway
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Please, no posters of Gene Simmons!
I totally disagree that Gene Simmons should be one of the poster children for showing how you build a business that "competes with free" as Mike writes. Gene Simmons should NOT be any kind of "poster" anything. That dude is ugly. He should not be allowed within view of a poster factory. Barring Gene Simmons posters, and the reproduction of Gene Simmons posters is a copyright I can get behind.
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Ridiculous? Yeah
I wrote a post about it in my blog (Link up top)
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When was this guy actually popular? 1971? Him still being around seems long term to me. How much longer could you want?
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This is why Grace Slick retired.
Vermin buy concert tickets Gene.
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he's no idiot
simmons has always been willing and able to say whatever it takes to get people looking at him and his products. behind that silly facade there really is a shrewd businessman. just like a group of clowns in makeup that really do put out some decent music.
if you ever want to hear him at his best/worst just listen to the interview between him and terry gross on fresh aire. that one interview has been played more times than just about any other from that show. it put gene simmon out there and even got terry gross some non-npr publicity.
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You don't know who Kiss is?
No. Never heard of them.
They look like idiots to me.
No, no, no, dude.
These are four of the smartest guys who ever lived.
They're these Jewish guys that grew up in New York,
and they put on guitars and makeup to get girls,
and all of their songs
are about fucking!
I'm listening.
Seriously, this song is called Love Gun, and it's about Paul Stanley's dick and how this girl's gonna
get some of his dick!
Cool. I didn't know Jews could sing like that.
No. No. They couldn't at the time. That's why they had to dress like clowns.
This got them girls?
Get this! They've been getting pussy nonstop for 30 years!
They're probably fucking right now, and they're old dudes!
They put makeup on,and it's all good!
No shit?
You pull the trigger of my Love gun You see, Ronnie?
His dick is the gun!
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Again the false equation of making music with work.
Not all that long ago -- a 100 years -- performers were looked down on as undesirables, and rightly so. We now know that even when they're allowed to get rich, the joys of making music don't improve nasty natures. It's time for society to evaluate the wisdom of letting power accumulate by income from pleasing mass audiences. The simple solution is steeply progressive income tax rates: remove ridiculous incomes, problem is solved mechanically, no need to to do complex and contentious weighing of value to society. -- NO ONE is worth to society as much as Gene Simmons has been able to accumulate. If you expect a vile rock singer to be any different than his persona, you've no understanding of human nature. More money just fuels worse behavior, where if his income were kept within reaonable bounds, we *might* get something decent eventually. That seems an iron law to me, but most think that a remoted *possibility* that they'll "strike it rich" someday is worth *actually* allowing society to be taken over by the worst elements.
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Re: Again the false equation of making music with work.
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Re: Re: Again the false equation of making music with work.
Not a fan of Simmons and his self-serving idiocy, but punitive tax rates are not the answer. That just penalizes success and rewards failure.
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Re: Re: Again the false equation of making music with work.
Tax isn't a punishment. It's not the government being big meanies to the rich, who are so upset by it they're going to quit making money altogether.
Tax is necessary because it pays for things society needs. It is a more efficient way of providing things that everybody needs, and of ensuring that everybody gets them, regardless of income.
People who have more money have more excess money. Money they don't need to live. Or in the case of people as rich as Simmons, money they could set fire to to heat their home, use as toilet paper, shred for confetti, and still die rich. People with that amount of money can afford to pay more tax, and it won't hurt them in any way. It's just a number going down. They're not going to have to sleep on the street. Unlike many good people who do have to.
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Ronald J. Riley,
Speaking only on my own behalf.
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 - (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 8 pm EST.
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Mike, it's really time for a killfilter so we don't need to scroll down that much.
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Gene Simmons can KISS my A$$
His A&E show is as scripted as it gets (next to the Hills) and his son is a talentless son of a rocker that will ride his coat tails into oblivion.
He is a media whore, will be a media whore and will always be a media whore.
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Somehow I doubt he really cares much about your opinion one way or another.
You can keep talking about theory and the way things should be while Gene keeps living his life you you live yours. Guess who wins?
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http://www.genesimmons.com/pages/solo.html
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Who gets to look in the mirror and not be Gene Simmons? Who gets to know they have integrity, are not a whore, are not something between a joke and "ew!". Are not widely thought of by the public as an idiot and a relic who should have retired gracefully a couple of decades ago.
I do! So do most people! Self-respect is priceless.
There's not much worse than an old man's vanity. Except listening to him telling you about it!
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Really? People still care to listen to KISS outside of that #6 'Classic Rock' preset on their radio for when every other station is on commercial??
I truly am surprised.
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You can only sue if someone actually copies your song, and claim damages for each download. What Kiss would make wouldn't cover the bus fare to the lawyer's office.
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LOL ... yeah they are on the top ten most down loaded songs list. I'm on a horse.
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Response to: Jose_X on Oct 7th, 2010 @ 12:16pm
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's it.
You give the guy much more credit for this than he really deserves.
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yup
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